


Home Before Dark (If There Is Ever a Tomorrow Remix)

by voodoochild



Category: Criminal Minds, Winnie-the-Pooh - A. A. Milne
Genre: Destroying Childhoods, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The most wonderful thing about Tiggers is that you're the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Before Dark (If There Is Ever a Tomorrow Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalaietha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Out of the Woods](https://archiveofourown.org/works/64103) by [lalaietha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha). 



You don't remember what happened before you went to live in the Hundred Acre Wood.

(That's a lie. If you didn't remember, you wouldn't cry at the little things that feel like _home_. A Baltimore Orioles cap - like Bobby's, Bobby loved baseball. A whiff of gardenia perfume - Mom, getting ready for work one morning, lesson plans spread over the counter. A brown leather briefcase - Dad keeps it beside his chair, you used to slide it out when he wasn't home and snap and unsnap the locks.)

At least there are others. At first, it was the five of you. You were the second. Kanga-Ellie, with her sweet smile and her hugs, who made sure you all ate. Piglet-Tim, who used to be so happy and now can't get out of bed. And Eeyore-Holly, who still cried every night even though she'd been there longer than all of you.

Then there came more. Rabbit-Luke, who doesn't like you and thinks you can't take care of Christopher Robin. Owl-Peter, whose glasses were always needing tape and who took care of Piglet. Roo-Zach, who Christopher Robin lost and wouldn't tell anyone how.

And there's Christopher Robin. Beautiful, broken Christopher Robin who needs you more than ever. Tiggers are very good trackers, and you need to find Pooh for him. You've tried almost everything. You followed the scent of honey to the house with the pine trees, and you thought you'd found him this time. But they're always wrong; red shirts or yellow shirts or white bears or black bears or brown bears, and never Pooh.

Christopher Robin sometimes whispers that he doesn't think he'll ever find Pooh. Sometimes you worry he's right. Sometimes you don't care, because that means you have Christopher Robin all to yourself.

***

Tiggers never get lost, either, which was how you found Christopher Robin that day. He told you to stay at the house, but when it had been two hours, you knew something was wrong. You stole the keys to someone's car - Rabbit had tried to talk you out of it, but you didn't listen - and drove to the blue house.

(There was screaming and a woman with a baseball bat and a little girl with a bear that had a red shirt like all the rest. Tiggers are fierce and can jump further than a kangaroo, so you're not scared of them. You slapped the girl away with your paw and took Christopher Robin back to the house near the sandy pit.)

You know what the others think of your curling up around Christopher Robin. But he needs someone to hold him together while he finds Pooh and takes care of Piglet, and he seems to accept it from you. You like it when he comes apart, because you can pin him to the bed and lick his tears.

He makes you feel bigger than you are, and that is a good thing for Tiggers, who are not so very big.

You tell him not to go to the shop; it doesn't smell right. You watch through the window at the man at the counter - he seems all right at first, but then you notice him speaking to a customer, and they both turn into woozles through the glass.

Woozles are sneaky. They steal honey and they lure you into traps.

You try to warn Christopher Robin, but suddenly, the shop is filled with not only more woozles, but heffalumps too. Christopher Robin is frightened of the heffalumps and woozles - he'd seen some at the restaurant, trying to kidnap him, and had knocked one on the head before you got him out. You try so hard to get to him, shouting his name and pounding on the glass, but a heffalump and a woozle (and why do they seem smarter than the rest?) pin you to the ground.

The last thing you remember is the heffalump calling you a flower instead of a Tigger.

***

"Lily, my name is Special Agent Rossi. I wanted to see how you were doing."

The heffalump is talking to you again, but it's still calling you by that flower's name. You're not a flower, you're a Tigger, you've always been Tigger.

(Except for when you remember Daddy, with his briefcase and his beard and his _how's my Tiger-Lily? Grrrrrrr._ )

"It's all right if you don't want to talk. You can just nod or shake your head. Is that all right?" the heffalump asks, and Tiggers try to be friendly, even to heffalumps, so you nod.

It studies you for a minute - _take a picture_ , you want to snarl, but the heffalump hasn't done anything to hurt you yet. It sits down in the chair, smiling encouragingly, but you know it's just waiting for you to let your guard down. It'll steal your honey then.

"Christopher's doing better, you know. He's much healthier now. So is Tim."

You growl from under your hair, flexing your claws into the bedding. "It's Piglet. His name is Piglet. And he would have been fine anyway. We took care of him."

"All right," the heffalump says. "Can you tell me how long Piglet was sick? We're trying to help the doctors, but he isn't speaking, and they need to know how badly he's sick."

Heffalumps are tricky. What if he's lying about Piglet? What if he wants you to betray Christopher Robin? But what if Piglet really needs your help? What if helping the heffalump is the only way to save him?

"He stopped eating in May, and that was when he started the coughing."

The heffalump inhales in shock. "That's almost seven months ago."

Has it been? Is that bad?

"Thank you for telling me," the heffalump says, tapping something into its phone. "I'll let the doctors know. You may have saved his life, Lily."

" _Tigger_ ," you growl in reminder, and the heffalump sighs, but nods.

***

There have been woozles in and out of your room, but only the one heffalump. Woozles are sneaky, nasty things, and you don't like them. One has glasses and a nervous tic to his paw - it tells you it's a doctor, but that's stupid. Woozles can't be doctors.

The woozles come in groups - two or three of them at a time, sometimes with the police or the doctors - but the heffalump always comes alone. You start finding you don't mind it so much, because at least with a heffalump, you always know where you stand.

(Not that you're standing. They tell you they've restrained you for "your own protection, Lily", but you know they're lying. You don't even want to escape any more. All you really want to do is bounce, so, so badly.)

"How are you today?" the heffalump asks. It has been very careful not to call you that flower or Tigger.

"Okay," you respond.

"That's very good. Did you see Doctor Winters?" You can't keep them all straight, and it must show on your face, because the heffalump reminds you. "She's the blonde woman with glasses and a mole on her cheek. Do you remember now?"

She's a woozle, but sometimes she's a doctor. Today, she was a doctor.

"Oh. She was very nice this morning. No tests or questions."

The heffalump nods. "She thinks you're ready to see some people. Your family."

You instinctively panic, a little, but the heffalump just waits, calm and steady. You can see it shrinking, until it looks less like a heffalump and more like a person. A man. Dark-haired, goatee, dressed all in black, expensive shoes.

"Welcome back, Lily," he says.

"Agent . . . Agent Rossi, right?" you ask, and he grins for a moment before turning and motioning to someone you can't see.

And then there's people crying and holding your hand and brushing your hair back (the orange streaks are so bright here). Mom. Dad. Even Bobby, who's so tall now.

 _Lily_ , they call you, and for the first time in a very long time, it feels right.


End file.
